Weekend Without Waste:Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages Teams Up With Keep Texas Beautiful to Educate Texans About Recycling

Coca-Cola Southwest Beverages (CCSWB) and Keep Texas Beautiful helped create a “Weekend Without Waste” during one of the biggest sporting and festival event weekends in Texas. Volunteer recycling teams roamed stadium stands and parking lots from Oct. 4-6 with signs and recycling bins to remind Texans to recycle their bottles and cans when they’re finished.

The recycling teams reached more than 100,000 fans through recycling events at the Alamo Stadium in San Antonio, The State Fair of Texas, the Dallas Cowboys/ Houston Texans game, the UTRGV HESTEC Community Day in Edinburg, and the San Antonio Spurs/Houston Rockets game.

Texans also had the opportunity to recycle for a good cause with Coca-Cola Recycle & Give machines, the first time the machines have ever been used in Texas. These one-of-a-kind “reverse vending” machines enabled fairgoers to donate to Texas Exes and OU Club of Dallas student scholarship funds with every bottle and can recycled.

The goal was to educate as many Texans as possible on what, how and where to recycle and to ensure that bottles and cans consumed during the events ended up in recycling bin. More than more than 2,300 pounds of cans and plastic bottles were collected statewide from the events.

The “Weekend Without Waste” pilot is part of The Coca-Cola Company’s “World Without Waste” initiative, an industry-first goal to collect and recycle the equivalent of every bottle or can it sells globally by 2030. The company is tackling the ambitious goal through a renewed focus on the entire packaging lifecycle – from how bottles and cans are designed and made, to how they’re recycled and repurposed.

"Public recycling events like the 'Weekend without Waste' are a first step towards achieving our goal of a World Without Waste," said Debbie Moody, vice president, public affairs and communications, CCSWB. “Through education and hands-on collection efforts, we can ensure that more of the material will be recycled rather than end up in landfills."

Suzanne Kho, executive director of Keep Texas Beautiful, added, “Keep Texas Beautiful is proud to be a long-time partner of Coca-Cola and is excited to support its World Without Waste effort. We’re looking forward to seeing the impact of this important recycling program across the state!”

The 2018 partners of the “Weekend Without Waste” include the Houston Texans, San Antonio Spurs, San Antonio ISD, EarthX, Keep Houston Beautiful, OU Club of Dallas, UTRGV HESTEC, Dallas Texas Exes and Waste Management of Texas.